ReThink is a new multimedia collaboration between Ideas Roadshow and the Toronto Star. Host Howard Burton travels the globe to engage great thinkers in substantive discussions about ideas in a way that challenges our preconceived notions and beliefs. Each week we focus on a new idea with an expert in that field, and everyday (Monday-Friday) we publish a new blog post with an accompanying video clip that explores a different dimension of the week's idea.

Religion and Morality

Is religion the source of morality, or does it simply police our morality?

Today we introduce a new format for
ReThink
. Henceforth we will be focusing intensively on a single theme with a single thinker for an entire week. Everyday (Monday through Friday) we will publish a new post highlighting a different nuance of the week's theme.

This week we analyse religion and morality with Frans de Waal, the Charles Howard Candler professor of Primate Behaviour in the Emory University Department of Psychology, and director of the
Living Links Center
and the Yerkes National Primate Research Center. His scientific research focuses on various aspects of primate social behaviour, including altruism, cooperation, and conflict resolution. Professor de Waal has written numerous books, including
The Bonobo and the Atheist
, which forms the basis of our conversation with him.

After a lifetime of studying the behaviour of chimpanzees and bonobos, Frans believes that many of the behaviours we assume to be uniquely human are, in fact, shared with our fellow primates and other members of the animal kingdom:

“If you said, ‘Humans have the tendency to be moral, and we are the only species that does so’, you would have to explain where that came from, and you would probably come up with explanations of culture and religion. But biologists, like myself, believe that many of these moral tendencies are much older than our species. It’s not something that we invented."

This leads him to suggest, in today's clip, that rather than looking at religion as something that tells us what to do, current research in primate behaviour suggests that we already have a sense of morality within us. It is “bred for us” by evolution. We are pre-programmed, so to speak, to accept a sense of religious morality.

Frans de Waal discusses religion and morality.

Are we pre-programmed to accept morality as Frans suggests? Or is there more to religion than Frans would have us believe? Could it be that we are essentially an amoral species and acquire our morality only through religion?

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